The operation was nearly finished when Mike (who was suffering from a bad cold when he started to work) felt too sick to continue. We pulled him back on deck, and I took over. The Capre’s little windlass could cope with only about fifteen feet of chain at a time, and when I had helped four or five installments aboard, all the slack had been taken up and the chain was tautly vertical from the sea bed to the surface. The great anchor, sixty feet below me, was beginning to move, stirring up little clouds of mud.
Now that I was no longer wanted on the surface, I decided to go down and have a look at the bottom. I gave the necessary instructions to my tender, who lowered me away slowly—for I had not forgotten the trouble my ears had given me the last time I dived too quickly.
Visibility was fantastically good; it was possible to see about a hundred feet in every direction, and the Capre looked like a toy boat far above my head. When I reached the bottom, the great anchor had been winched into the vertical position, and stood upright on its flukes. I felt dwarfed as it waved menacingly before me, and I remembered that some of the links in the chain had been very badly worn. Since I was using shoes, not flippers, I had very little mobility, and my tender didn’t understand my signals when I asked for more hose so that I could walk away from this tottering mass of iron. If the chain broke, I would hardly have time to shout “Timber!”
There was no way in which I could tell that I was breathing pure oxygen instead of compressed air. There was, perhaps, a slightly metallic taste in my mouth, and my rate of respiration seemed to be a little more rapid than usual. If this was true, I find it surprising, since I should have expected my lungs to work more slowly in a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere than a 20 per cent one.
While I was trying to get away from this Damoclean anchor—which was now quite clear of the bottom, and was suspended about ten feet off the sea bed—a couple of fair-sized cod came to have a look at me. They were far smaller than their big brother a few hundred yards along the reef, probably tipping the scales at a mere twenty or thirty pounds. But they had the same characteristic front view—the downward drooping mouth, the big goo-goo eyes bulging out of the sides of their heads.
A few minutes later, Mike, now recovered from his temporary sickness, arrived on the scene with flash camera and Porpoise unit. We took photographs of each other, standing on the flukes of the anchor and clinging to its stock. As I climbed back to the surface, I felt that glow of satisfaction that comes to all Boy Scouts who have done their Good Turn for the day and can now revert to normal.
This was Mike’s last dive on Heron Island. We had both been working too hard, in our anxiety not to waste the good weather, and had become plagued by an accumulation of boils, bruises, and cuts. I had also managed to crack a rib while climbing over the side of the dinghy with the heavy breathing gear on my back. However, to quote Squadron Leader Walter Mitty, it was only a scratch; I set the bone myself.
These ailments had reduced our efficiency and sometimes prevented us from diving altogether. They were not as frustrating as they would once have been, for by this time we had gathered most of the material we needed, and realized that these accumulating ills were Nature’s way of warning us that it was time we took a rest.
My own final dive took place, appropriately enough, among our favorite coral hills. It was already midafternoon when, with John Goldsmith and three interested onlookers who had come along on condition that they did the rowing, we took the dinghy out to the edge of the reef. The water was calm, but visibility was rather poor—though not so many months ago I should have thought it marvelous to be able to see thirty feet, as we could do easily enough. We dropped the anchor onto the little mountain below us, and watched it slide down the slope until it lodged in a crevice. Unlike most sailors, we never had to worry about the anchor getting caught. If this happened, we could always go down and release it.
I had mapped out a definite plan of action for this final dive, though when I saw the poor visibility I was not altogether happy about carrying it out. During the whole of this second stay—and we had now been on Heron Island for over three weeks—we had not met a single shark. Perhaps if we speared some fish, that might bring them on the scene and I would be able to get some photographs.
With the last of the Porpoise air cylinders on my back, and the camera slung round my neck, I swam down into the familiar little valley and grottoes. All the usual occupants were there, including one scarred and distrustful cod which we had photographed at least a dozen times, usually when he was making rude faces at us.
A few minutes later, John, wearing a twin-cylinder unit, joined me on the bottom. He was carrying a Lyle Davis gun, and although one can be black-listed from all the best spearfishermen’s associations for hunting with the aid of breathing gear, we considered that the circumstances permitted it. After all, we were not hunting ordinary fish—we were hunting sharks, and anything we speared would be merely the bait.
After a certain number of attempts (I will not say how many) John impaled a fine coral trout. He was obviously disappointed when I refused to come in and take a closeup of him and his victim; I was determined not to be caught with a used flash bulb and an uncocked camera if a shark came into view, and kept spinning round in the water to obtain 360 degrees of vision. John got fed up with waiting around for his photograph to be taken—or perhaps he did not care for the idea of sharing these rather misty waters with an injured fish which was sending out distress signals in all directions. He swam back to the boat, and its occupants—who had been observing us through viewing glasses—hauled the trout aboard. This was not at all what I had intended, as I wanted the fish to be left in the water.
However, if sharks were interested in our bait, they would surely have appeared by this time. I decided to wait around no longer, but to go on a last stroll down the reef where it deepened out into the sea.
This was an area which had always fascinated me, but which I had entered only two or three times before, since I felt that we could not afford the air to go exploring so far down. Now that did not matter, for this was my last dive and I might as well empty the last remaining cylinder.
The coral hills from which I had started my leisurely swim stood in about thirty feet of water, and soon faded into the blue mist behind and above me as I went down the long, gentle slope. The bottom here was white sand—quite flat, but not horizontal. When I stopped to survey the view, I seemed to be standing on a limitless plain that had been tilted so that there was something subtly wrong about the entire visible landscape. The stream of bubbles from my exhaust valve, surely, should not go up in that direction! I found myself tending to lean forward, in an attempt to bring myself at right angles to the slope and thus to remove the cause of my slight visual disorientation.
The A-bomb-shaped mass of coral which towered thirty feet from the sea bed loomed up on my right. There had always been a pair of pipefish swimming mournfully around it, and they were there now. I took a few flash shots, and the burned-out bulbs shot skyward like ascending balloons. They would drift past the dinghy, and inform its occupants that I was at work fifty feet below them. Not all our used flash bulbs, incidentally, were jettisoned in this way. We parked some of them with care, and anyone diving into a certain cave will be surprised to find a few clinging to the ceiling above his head. Had we thought of it in time, we might have left our cards as well, sealed up in a water-tight jar . . . perhaps inscribed with the slogan we had concocted for the expedition: WRECKS ARRANGEDAND SALVAGED.
The great overhanging mushroom faded into the mists behind me, and still the sea bed sloped on downward with no sign of leveling out. A weirdly shaped boulder, like a gnarled and hunch-backed gnome, appeared ahead of me, and I stood admiring it for some time, thinking what an excellent illustration it would have made for a Hans Andersen story. It and I were now the only objects breaking the gray uniformity of the endless, tilted plain.
I was now a considerable distance from the dinghy, and it was unwise
to go any further. Indeed, it was probably unwise to have come this far alone. But I knew that another of the big cods lived in this neighborhood, and wanted to take a photograph of him if it were possible. There still seemed to be plenty of air in my cylinder, and I was economically determined to use it to the last breath. That air had cost us a good deal—not in terms of money, but in terms of the effort involved in carrying these steel bottles a total distance of two thousand miles, and manhandling them dozens of times from one vehicle to another.
I swam a little further down the long slope, and presently saw ahead of me a curious rock half-embedded in the sand. At least, that was my first impression; then I realized that here was the cod, lying on the bottom. It was over a yard long, its body a pepper-and-salt color which made it blend rather well against the sandy sea bed. As I approached, it moved slowly away, and refused to turn broadside-on so that I could get a good photograph. I had enough pictures of retreating fish in my collection, and unless I could get my subject to cooperate I was not going to waste any film.
Suddenly, with a graceful flapping of wings, a big leopard ray appeared out of the haze and began to swing round me in a wide circle. I immediately abandoned the cod in favor of this much more interesting creature, with its pointed, almost birdlike head and its beautifully mottled body. Being careful not to swim directly toward it, which might have scared it off, I made a circuitous approach to the ray, and was almost in position when one of those typically frustrating underwater accidents occurred. The flash bulb, apparently even more eager than I was to get a photograph, fired spontaneously.
The explosion of light scared the ray out of its wits; it was the only fish I had ever seen really frightened by a flash bulb. The big manta we had met on our first visit had not been unduly worried even when the flash went off in its face at two yards’ range—and the null reaction of the barracuda has already been mentioned. In an instant, the ray seemed to change; its leisurely flapping became a swift and powerful beat. Trailing its long whip behind it, it raced out of sight at a speed which I could not hope to match.
A little belatedly, I decided to make my way back to the dinghy, though I had no intention of surfacing until compelled to. Presently the familiar coral sculptures began to reappear, first as dim silhouettes, then as solid objects with all their wealth of colorful detail and their populations of never-resting fish. As I stood in the sandy amphitheater which I had grown to know so well, I realized that this might be the very last time I would ever dive in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef. The enterprise which had absorbed so much of my time and effort over the last two years had now virtually come to its end. I felt sorry that Mike, who had put even more time into the project, could not be with me on this final dive.
Something made me look up. A phalanx of slim, ghostly shapes was passing overhead—so many of them that they occupied a considerable portion of my “sky.” They were too far away for clear vision, but I recognized them at once. The fish that John had wounded had at last brought the hunters onto the scene. The barracuda had taken their time, but they were here.
It did not seem to be as large a pack as the one that Mike and I had encountered before. There were perhaps fifty of the long, lean sea wolves moving slowly above the coral peaks beneath which I was swimming. They kept their distance as I hurried upward, driving toward the dinghy as quickly as I could.
Treading water, I stripped off the Porpoise unit and handed it over the side of the boat. I wanted to have a closer look at those ’cuda, and did not wish to be encumbered with too much equipment in case I had to move quickly. John was already in the dinghy, and looked at me in horrified disbelief when I shouted to him: “Get your gun—there are about fifty ’cuda here. I want you to spear one so that we can see what happens!”
“You’ve got a hope,” he said, or words to that effect. He had seen the photographs we had taken when immersed in the earlier pack of barracuda, and they appeared to have damped his enthusiasm for hunting. Nothing I could do would persuade him to leave the boat, so I set off with camera alone, getting the dinghy to raise anchor and follow me. I felt quite certain that, with this refuge so close at hand, I could always reach safety should the barracuda become too inquisitive.
They were still circling below, but the underwater visibility was becoming poor for the sun was now halfway down the sky. When swimming on the surface, I could no longer see the bottom, but appeared to be poised over an infinite blue abyss. It was a somewhat disturbing sensation, for I now had no sense of scale and when I dived I could no longer tell how far I was either from the sea bed or the surface. I would take a deep breath, then swim vertically downward for what seemed a very long time before the misty outlines of the coral rock would appear far below me. By that time, I would have to start thinking about going back for air.
On two or three of these dives I saw the barracuda again, like pale wraiths patrolling the sea. But I could not get near them, and I very quickly realized that it was not at all sensible to continue swimming under these conditions. Moreover, I was getting tired and cold, and at any moment I might feel the first twinges of cramp. I decided not to press my luck, and with one final glance around the now empty and featureless blue that encompassed me, I climbed back into the boat.
The sad little pipefish, the truculent cod, the nervous leopard rays, and all the other inhabitants of this section of the reef would now be left in peace. But for how long? I wondered. Perhaps we had taken too many people out to the reef; if, when we returned, it was so crowded with underwater explorers that there was no room for the fish, we would have only ourselves to blame.
XXIV
A Walk in the Dark
Like a visitor to London who is halfway through packing when he suddenly realizes that he has never seen the Tower or Westminster Abbey, I remembered one unforgivable oversight while we were preparing to leave Heron Island. I had never been out on the exposed reef at night.
With a few exceptions, the coral animals withdraw into their tiny homes during the hours of daylight, and do not emerge to feed until nightfall. One rather drab green coral—a close-packed honeycomb of minute tubes—does brave exposure to the sun, and may be found during the day beneath a short fuzz of tentacles, so that it resembles a stone covered with moss. If you scratch the stone at any point, the moss promptly disappears as the tentacles retreat, and a bald patch spreads swiftly over the entire face of the coral. Within a few seconds, all the polyps have withdrawn into their little caves, and will not emerge again until they have recovered from their shock. It is amusing to scratch your initials on one of these corals, and to watch the letters rapidly enlarge as a wave of panic sweeps over the colony.
The most colorful corals, however, can be observed only if you go out to the reef after dark with a powerful flashlight. To do this in comfort you need a still, warm night—and of course a favorable tide. We had barely two days left on Heron Island when I finally made the experiment. It was not very successful, but it was certainly unforgettable.
There was no moon, and the clear sky was blazing with the strange southern constellations whose outlines I had never learned. I had persuaded three somewhat reluctant companions to come with me—Norman, an acquaintance from our spear-fishing days in Sydney, and Peter and Harry, two lads who collected everything they could lay their hands on from venomous snakes (live) to aboriginal surgical instruments, which I was surprised to find had reached a high degree of perfection. Pete and Harry were desperately anxious to add a stonefish to their museum, but despite all their efforts they never succeeded in locating any of Spike’s surviving relatives.
We gathered on the western beach of the island just before low tide, our torches throwing pools of light upon the sand. It was very dark; the reef was a dimly discernible shadow close at hand, but its distant edge was only a silhouette against the stars. If we strained our eyes into the night, we could just see the outlines of the beached freighter, a quarter of a mile away.
The problem o
f choosing a path through the difficult territory ahead of us had so engaged my mind that, for once, I scarcely noticed the glory of the tropical sky. Then somebody pointed to the west and said: “What’s that light over there?”
I looked up into the stars. The sun had set long before, and no trace of the brief evening’s afterglow remained. Yet straddling the western sky, and stretching halfway to the zenith, was a faint cone of light, tilted somewhat toward the south. At first glance, it might have been taken for the Milky Way—but the densely packed star-clouds of the Galaxy arched across a different portion of the heavens.
It was, I knew, the zodiacal light—that pale and mysterious apparition that stretches outward from the sun like a millionfold-greater enlargement of the corona. I was seeing it for the first time in my life, and was surprised at its extent and the ease with which it could be observed in these clear and unpolluted skies, far from the glare of any cities. We stood looking up at it for several minutes, our torches extinguished, before we started to move out across the reef.
It was soon obvious that we had chosen a bad night. Though the tide was out as far as it would go, it was unusually high and the entire reef was still covered with at least a foot of water. I tried to encourage the party by telling them that further out toward the reef edge there might still be large areas of exposed coral on which we could walk, and that we had plenty of time to get there and back before the tide turned. So we took a bearing on the zodiacal light and headed out from shore.
It was eerie wading through the still pools, not knowing what the beams of our torches might suddenly reveal. There were thousands of small crabs out foraging; some of them would scuttle away at our approach, but others would bravely stand their ground and wave threatening claws. We had traveled no more than a dozen yards when we came across a small shark resting on the bottom; our torches did not disturb it, and it let us walk up to it before swimming slowly away.
The Coast of Coral Page 21
